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Mother
"Mother" is a song from Lita Ford's eighth studio album, Living Like A Runaway. It was released May 2012 in advance of the album's release and debuted on Jessica's Top 40 on August 19, 2012, becoming the album's third chart hit. It reached #1 the week of October 21, 2012 due to anticipation for a live concert she performed at Destination Daytona in Ormond Beach, Florida during the weekend-long festival Biketoberfest. Lita Ford not only returned to her classic sound on her 2012 album Living Like A Runaway - she returned to record-shattering Jessica's Top 40 chart glory, helped by my continued love for her music. The album's title track spent 14 weeks at #1, helping Lita also break the record for most career weeks at #1 and most consecutive weeks at #1 by artist. Like Alanis Morissette, who previously held the record for the song with the most weeks at #1, Lita followed that success up effortlessly. "Mother" debuted on Jessica's Top 40 in August 2012 after it was confirmed a music video would be filmed for the song. It was the second song from the album to be released, following "Branded", but both songs were passed up as the lead single in favor of "Living Like A Runaway". Lyrically, the song deals with Lita's "ugly divorce" with her ex-husband Jim Gillette, who she accuses of "brainwashing" her two sons, James and Rocco, so they wouldn't even see her following the divorce. She explained in an interview with Decibel Magazine, which premiered the song on their website: “My kids are with their dad. There was a huge divorce that went down. Basically, he brainwashed them and took them from me — not legally, (but by saying), “Oh, you don’t want to go with Mommy, Mommy’s bad. Don’t go with Mommy. ... He won’t let them hear it. He won’t let them have anything to do with me. He won’t let them look at any photographs. I’m wondering if they even have a computer… I miss them, I love them. They’re my life.” Due to the song's sensitive subject, Lita said the song was difficult to write and record. In an interview with Examiner.com, she said: "It was hard to write. It was hard to record. It's hard to listen to. I find myself skipping over it sometimes, depending on how much make-up I have on that day. If I'm all made up, I'm like, "Oh, can't cry right now!" I've done interviews where big, grown men tell me they've come away from it in tears. That's huge. That's what I wanted — for people to feel my pain." The music video was filmed in September 2012 with director Victory Tischler-Blue, one of Lita's former bandmates in The Runaways; the band's history was chronicled in the 2005 documentary Edgeplay: A Film About The Runaways, also directed by Blue. Due to the continued success of "Living Like A Runaway", "Mother" climbed up slower compared to Lita's other major JT40 hits, not reaching the top 3 until its eighth week in the top 40. But the song eventually managed to make its way to the top, reaching #1 the week of October 21, 2012. That came on the heels of a much-anticipated free concert at Destination Daytona in Ormond Beach, Florida during the biker festival Biketoberfest, finally giving me the chance to see the queen live after years of obsessing over her music.